Poe, Edgar Allan, Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, Kewer, Eleanor D., and Maureen Cobb Mabbott. Sense of guilt is presented as the torture and destructive power as the same time.

Alcohol addiction is condemned by the author as the source of endless evil. In conclusion, it is possible to state that the perfect choice of the narrator and the use of symbols create the horrific magic of The Black Cat. Besides, the picturesque symbol is gallows that is an instrument of slaughter and the symbol of coming revenge. Even the name of the pet, Pluto, is symbolic since it is an allusion to the Roman God of the Underworld who punishes sinners. There is an interesting idea that a black cat is a symbol of slavery (Peeples 104). The black cat itself can be considered one of the major symbols that can be interpreted as fate, revenge, witchcraft. In fact, The Black Cat abounds in symbols. 848).Īlong with the narrator, symbols play a major role in the creation of horror of the story. Everyone knows about the author’s alcohol addiction and an autobiographic fact of killing a pet belonging to Poe’s foster mother is also known (Poe et al. A picturesque fact that contributes to overall horror of the story is that Poe puts “much of himself in the story” (Poe et al. At the same time, a reader can easily conclude that the man really becomes mentally unstable due to alcohol addiction that awakens aggression, fatalism, and superstitiousness in the author’s soul. The narrator can be called an unreliable narrator as he states at the very beginning that he is considered mad though he is not mad and his story is not a nightmare. The narrator of the story performs the role of the main rhetorical device that ensures the disclosure of the main theme of the story. Finally, the murder is revealed due to the cat, though the corpse is hidden in the wall. This time, the narrator’s anger leads to the murder of his wife during an attempt of killing the cat. There appears one more cat that has a striking resemblance to Pluto. The tragedy is followed by a sudden burning of the house, mysterious appearance of the cat’s figure on the only wall that remained of the house. Such conduct plants the seeds of “PERVERSENESS” (Poe 250) in the narrator’s soul that leads to deliberate putting out the cat’s eye and succeeding hanging of the pet. The starting point of the “succession of very natural causes and effects” (Poe 249) that leads to the narrator’s appearance in a death cell is the change of relationship with Pluto that starts to avoid its master. However, narrator’s kind personality is gradually destroyed by alcohol abuse leading to domestic violence. The Black Cat is a story of moral decay of the narrator who is lucky to have a happy marriage and a lot of pets, Pluto the cat, “ favorite pet and playmate” (Poe 249) among them.

The black cat allan poe